Short hops and hard knocks with Red Sox beat writer Ian Browne.

Stadium Saturday

Everyone recovered from last night’s four-hour special? It would be nice to see a Red Sox-Yankees game come in at under three hours.

All the pre-game buzz was on the Yankees. GM Brian Cashman was swarmed by the rabid New York media. Is Joe Torre’s job on the line? What kind of shakeup to the Yankees need to straighten things out? Cashman gave all the standard answers in his usual classy fashion.

Then the game starts and Karstens gets nailed on the leg on the very first pitch of the game. When it rains, it pours.

Fortunately it’s not raining in New York today. Wake’s knuckler is dancing, but in the words of Yankees announce John Sterling if that was in fact his inning of play-by-play, "Jorgie juiced one."

2-0 Yankees in the fifth as of this posting.

Interesting stuff regarding Dice-K last night. John Farrell and Tito both mentioned that he’s being too cautious when he has a lead, which is resulting on all the walks. They’re urging him to let it fly, and trust his electric stuff. Dice-K is a very cerebral pitcher. He’s still figuring all this out.

Thursday against the Mariners should give a pretty good read into his learning curve. We’ll see what Ichiro has in store for him this time after Dice handled him pretty well at Fenway.

The Sox didn’t deserve to win today. Eight walks and 10 stranded baserunners are unacceptable. Wakefield and the bats share responsibility for this loss. True, Igawa pitched well, but the Sox had ample chances to get the lead in this one. This was a frustrating game to watch, as likely tomorrow will be with Julian Tavarez on the mound.

What’s up with Mikey Lowell?? It’s almost as if he’s got something on his mind when he’s out there. He’s already racked up more errors in this early part of the season, than he did ALL of last year. I’m not yelling that the sky is falling or anything, just a bit concerned. Anyway The Senor better have his head about him tomorrow, or he’s gonna have to GO!
Hey, Somebody please do not forget to set the bat warmer on high tonight as we have an early game tomorrow.

I’m with Jeff on this one; we didn’t deserve to win with all the walks and baserunners. I will say that we need to start scoring some runs for Wakefield. I’ll put some blame on him for the loss but more of it goes on our offense.

Yeah I’m a bit worried about Lowell, but as long as he’s hitting well AND his errors aren’t costing us too much, I’ll take it. I’m sure age is getting to him just a teeny-tiny bit, or something else is up.

I know Coco is a professional and he should act like one, but i’m with him on that poor calling by Froeming. The first strike was borderline and the last two were clearly balls. Maybe it’s because of that tipped foul he received on the mask earlier in the game ! :)

That being said, the Sox didn’t need bad umpiring to lose that one. No clutch hit, not enough runners on base and way too much runners on base allowed ( 11 by Wake ). The Yanks looked very comfortable in that on, didn’t they ?

Tavarez vs Wang today for the tie breaker. Do i really need to say more ?

Frustrating game last night….Wake needs to keep the walks down….and what was up with the UMP? 37 years in the BIGS and he doesn’t know where the strike zone is. Having said that….the offense fell asleep because Igawa served up some fat ones that they just plain missed. Oh well, on the whole …Sox still doing well so far. At this pace the offense is projected to get about 800 runs which while not anywhere near 2003, 2004 numbers, is still pretty respectable and should win them at least 90 games if they keep that era down to the high 3’s. Let’s hope Travarez pitches well in what should be his last start.

I have a funny feeling about today, I think we can pull it out. I was saying all week that baseball is impossible to predict. I thought the Yanks would win yesterday and we would today. Let’s hope that prediction is right. Last start (maybe) or EZ maybe he will have some extra motivation.

Crazy story about Josh Hancock, who pitched for the Sox at one point. Such untimely deaths, first Kile then Lidle now Hancock in the last 5 or so years. RIP

Tavarez, in my opinion, has pitched better than most of our other starters, even durign our sweep. Yes id rather have lester, but to all you nay-sayers, i think you should apologize lol.
and if Oki, and whoever gets sent out, hopefully donelly and pap, can keep the yanks’ off of home plate, and the scoreboard, this series is ours!

Wakefield couldn,t be more consistant over his career. For not having run support all along i would say there is no blame to go to a guy who doesn’t get the support but continues to provide as expected. oh yeah, SOX ARE DOING GREAT!!!!!!!

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